Yet Another Probe Into 2020 Election Fraud Closed Due to Lack of Evidence

On Monday night, Donald Trump insisted to Fox News host Brett Baier that the 2020 election had been fraudulently rigged against him. “I won in 2020 by a lot, let’s get that straight,” Trump said. “They were counting ballots, not the authenticity of the ballot. The ballots were fake ballots, this was a very rigged election,”

Baier attempted to lay out the dozens of lawsuits, audits, and investigations that had disproven Trump’s claim, but was unable to break through the former president’s delusions.  Some investigations have continued even years after Trump vacated the White House, and less than 24 hours after the former president once again aired his grievances about 2020 on national television, he was given another reality check. 

On Tuesday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the closure of an investigation into claims of fraud made by former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, after the DA’s office found no evidence that would substantiate the claims. “Over the course of the investigation, it was confirmed that numerous allegations made against the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections, and specifically, two election workers, were false and unsubstantiated,” Raffensberg’s office wrote in a press release. 

Giuliani had accused two Georgia election workers, Rudy Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss of having committed various acts of fraud in the course of counting ballots in Fulton County. Conspiracies leveled against Freeman and Moss included claims they had lied about flooding in election headquarters  in order to have poll watchers removed, counted ballots multiple times, and snuck extra ballots into the count to inflate President Joe Biden’s margins. Freeman and Moss have since filed a defamation suit against Giuliani. 

The allegations against Freeman and Moss became drivers of larger efforts by Trump and his allies to interfere with Georgia’s election outcomes. The pair were subjected to extreme harassment and threats by the former president’s devotees, and became key witnesses to the manner in which conspiracies about the election were formed and weaponized. During her testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, Moss was asked about the attorney’s claims that she and Freeman had exchanged a “USB drive” full of votes. Moss revealed that the drive was actually a piece of candy. 

Over the course of the investigation, which was conducted with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations and FBI, Raffensperger’s office found that “there was no evidence of any type of fraud as alleged.” Additionally, investigators found that social media posts purporting to show an admission of voter fraud from an election worker were created by an individual who “admitted he created a fake account and confirmed the content that was posted on the account was fake.” 

“We remain diligent and dedicated to looking into real claims of voter fraud,” Raffensperger said. “We are glad the state election board finally put this issue to rest. False claims and knowingly false allegations made against these election workers have done tremendous harm. Election workers deserve our praise for being on the front lines.”

Raffensperger himself was subjected to efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the election results in Georgia. In January 2021, the former president called Raffensperger and asked that he “find” the votes necessary to win him the state. 

There are two concurrent investigations into Trump’s efforts to obstruct the transfer of power following his election loss. One is being conducted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who earlier this month charged Trump with criminal mishandling of classified documents. The second is directly centered on the former president’s actions in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Trump and his allies actions in Georgia, and has signaled that she could bring an indictment of her own this summer.